Irene Jones

I could not write my review any better than Alexander Hoover has done. So relieved someone else felt as I did. Everyone raving about this movie made me feel I was on the wrong planet. It was boring and superficial. Like a string of scenes following one another with little connection. Sudden, unexplained character changes, overdrawn bad guys, lingering shots on nothing……. thanks Alexander.

Like some books are stories and some are literature, some films tell a story and some are much more. The Night Of falls into the latter category. The subject is grim, the tension is never ending. We the audience are treated as having intelligence. Nothing is spelt out or obvious. The twists and turns are breathtaking. The ending is perfect, although nothing is perfect in this small work of art.

I loved it. It has some terrible violence, which I had to cover my eyes at but it was not gratuitous, it was just part of the narrative that could not be avoided given the subject matter. The writing is wonderful, the characters are so knowable and surprise you constantly. So well cast, you can’t imagine anyone else being these characters. It was also startlingly innovative, which often means embarrassingly wankey but not here. I thought it broke new ground.